Comestibleitems are, as the name says, items that you can eat. They are very important, as almost all species need to eat, or they will grow hungry and eventually die of starvation. Luckily, there are many sources of nutrition in the Dungeon for the resourceful adventurer.

Overview

Hunger and food in Dungeon Crawl are rarely significant issues but, if ignored, can be fatal. Characters start with a satiated stomach, but grow steadily hungrier over time. Some races require less food than others, but characters also use more food when fighting and/or casting spells.

Types of Food

Food is provided in two main forms: temporary chunks of raw flesh that rot over time, and "permafood" that does not rot.

Chunks of flesh

Chunks are edible pieces of meat, carved from freshly slain corpses using the butcher (c) command. The number of chunks that a corpse provides is somewhat random, but larger monsters generally provide more chunks. Most species can eat chunks only when hungry, though carnivorous species can eat more often. Some species cannot eat meat at all (spriggans, which are completely herbivorous, vampires, which subsist solely on blood, and mummies, which are completely incapable of eating). Butchering a corpse or bottling its blood always take one turn (10 auts).

You will most commonly encounter "clean" meat, which has no ill effects. Some creatures will instead produce inedible or mutagenic chunks of meat. Some species cannot eat these chunks, while others can consume them under certain conditions. Regardless of type, chunks of meat will rot away completely about 200 turns after its source corpse was slain. Each individual chunk has its own freshness and will rot away at its own interval, regardless if they are stacked together into one inventory slot.

The Carnivore mutation or wearing an amulet of the gourmand will allow you to eat chunks even when not hungry and gain more nutrition from them. Note that ghouls, felids, and kobolds are all carnivorous, making these species easier for players who are having trouble keeping other species well-fed. Trolls, meanwhile, start with the gourmand trait as an intrinsic. Spriggans, being herbivorous, gain no benefit from the amulet, nor do Vampires, who cannot eat food at all. The ability to easily stuff yourself to Very Full or Engorged levels of satiation allows you to ignore the hunger costs of berserking, spell hunger, and god abilities to a greater degree.

Chunk type

Colour (ASCII)

Monster

Effects

Clean

White

Most monsters

No harmful side effects. Your satiation increases by 1,000, less if you are an Herbivore. Ghouls will be healed (1d5 − 1) + 1d(experience level) damage and restore 1 point of rotted HP.

Mutagenic

Purple

Aberrations

Does not provide nutrition, but instead causes a random mutation instead of providing nutrition. Ghouls will not mutate and get the effect of a regular chunk instead.

Only ghouls can eat these chunks, who consume them as if they were normal chunks.

Inventory Interaction

Depending on the player's species, the game will sometimes merge these chunks into one lump "chunk of flesh" in the inventory if the player is able to consume them as normal, regardless of its source (e.g. a ghoul who butchers a necrophage corpse, which normally yields putrefying chunks, will yield normal chunks instead). This is probably a mechanic intended to conserve inventory space. Interestingly, the chunks will still retain the properties of the original corpse, even when merged into a stack of chunks. For example, casting the Ignite Poison spell, which normally causes poisonous chunks/corpses to burst into a cloud of flame, will cause all chunks in the stack to ignite as well, as if they were all poisonous. This is probably a bug.

This merging only occurs if the species has an inherent racial ability that allows them to eat a specific chunk. For example, gargoyles and undead, who are inherently immune to poison (not resistant!), will always see poisonous chunks as simply "chunks". Similarly, Ghouls will always see putrefying chunks as normal chunks.

Religious Restrictions

All of the "good gods" (Zin, The Shining One, Elyvilon), plus Beogh, forbid followers to eat the meat of their own species (cannibalism). If this happens, you will lose 10 piety and gain 10 penance points. In addition, Zin forbids followers from eating chunks from monsters with "normal" or "high" monster intelligence. This is not cumulative with the cannibalism penalty, and applies even to evil monsters. To prevent mistakes, chunks from "restricted" corpses are displayed in red (in ASCII mode).

Worshipers of Fedhas Madash aren't formally limited in their diet, but many of their god's abilities can or must use fruit, so it is unwise to eat them.

Permafood

Permafood, or permanent food, refers to the regular food found throughout the dungeon. They will never rot like chunks do, and as such can be collected and stored for future need. Permafood includes meat, vegetarian, and "neutral" options, making various items more or less useful to species with the Carnivore or Herbivore traits.

Worshipers of Fedhas Madash can use fruits to power the god's special abilities.

Nutritional values of food items

This list is ordered from most to least nutritious for normal eaters. Note that some foods require more time to consume than others. It's worth keeping some quick snacks in your inventory for emergencies, particularly if you are a spellcaster facing high spell hunger costs! You also can view a food item in your inventory to get an idea of the amount of time it takes to consume it.

Potions of blood provide Vampires with 1000 nutrition, and none for all other species. Vampires cannot restore hunger from any other consumables.

Satiation

Your satiation level is determined by the number of nutrition units you have remaining. Most characters will use at least three food points per turn—more if fighting. Using spells can incur spell hunger, which can only be reduced by the player's Intelligence and Spellcasting ability. Some special abilities also use up nutrition.

Label

Nutrition

Starving

<1,000

Near starving

1,001 – 1,533

Very hungry

1,534 – 2,066

Hungry

2,067 – 2,600

Satiated (nothing displayed)

2,601 – 7,000

Full

7,001 – 9,000

Very full

9,001 – 11,000

Engorged

11,001 – 12,000 (max.)

Effects of satiation

If you are at level "Satiated" or more, most characters get no special bonus or penalty, although at level "Engorged", you cannot eat anything (with no other special penalties).

At "Starving", you suffer a −3 penalty to hit when fighting, and the damage you inflict is reduced by (1d5 − 1). You cannot cast spells or use most abilities. If you are under 500 points of satiation, there is 1/40 chance that you will lose consciousness for 1d8 + 5 turns. If you fall to 0 points, your character will die of starvation.

Undead characters are handled specially:

Mummies and players under the Necromutation spell do not have a hunger clock and are not susceptible to the effects of hunger, nor can they consume food.

Vampires have a unique hunger system based on the amount of blood that they have consumed, which will have different effects on the player. They cannot starve to death, but they will lose the ability to regenerate health at the "Bloodless" level of hunger, among other effects (see the Vampire page for more details). Their Bat Form ability cannot be used if they are Full or higher (be careful while drinking blood over deep water or lava!).

Ghouls cannot become Full no matter how much they eat; any food points accumulated above 6,999 are wasted. They cannot starve to death, but when Hungry or worse, they will rot much faster. Ghouls are still susceptible to spell hunger, but unlike other species, they can cast spells while starving.

Other sources of satiation

Drawing the "Feast" card (Deck of oddities) will set your Hunger state to 12,000 (Engorged).

Hunger

Hunger per turn is proportional to time taken during that turn, except if you were walking with a movement delay greater than 10 auts; in that case, you will consume food (and regenerate) as if that delay was 10 auts. This means that fast races gain less hunger, but slow races and followers of Cheibriados do not gain extra hunger.

Each turn, the player uses a certain amount of food. This is calculated as follows:

Tips & Tricks

Chunks are the main food source of most characters. Ghastly as it may be, taking advantage of them will allow you to stretch out your permafood and avoid starvation more easily.

Certain spells and effects can directly generate chunks without wasting turns butchering. Most useful is Animate Skeleton, which is very easy to cast and leaves chunks from any zombifiable monster with a skeleton, i.e. most living, corpse-leaving monsters other than insects. Other effects that can leave chunks include the beam from a wand of disintegration, the high-level Conjurations spell Orb of Destruction, and the aftereffects of Inner Flame.